Post Christmas stuff

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. We did here. Joseph was (very neary) a perfect angel at the big family get together. No repeat of the Thanksgiving melt-down, thank goodness.

People seemed to like the stuff I made for the Christmas potluck. And by "people" I don't mean Jesse because he refused to try the torta I made because he doesn't like tomatoes and it had sun-dried tomato pesto in it. He's so persnikity sometimes.

Yesterday I went after-Christmas shopping and spent too much buying stuff I didn't really need. Oh well, it's only once a year and I got some really nice stuff. Jesse watched the kids for me all day so it was also a really nice break and a chance to get out of the house. I could tell Elle missed me though because she wanted to nurse non-stop after I got home. It was weird being away from her for so long. I missed her. I used to not seeing Joseph all the time since he's not in school or will spend the day with my parents but I'm not used to being away from Elle.

Ben came over for a while and had a nice time talking about his book and other random crap. It's good to have a brother that you can talk about random crap with.

Jesse's bringing home chinese food tonigh. Life is good.

Merry Christmas!

Whatever you do don't click this link or you won't be able to get anything done today!
http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

Sleeping

Woohoo! For the past 2 night Elle has slept for a stetch of 6+ hours without a feeding. Let's hope she keeps this up. If she does it for a few more night then I'll move her into her crib to sleep at night.

That makse me sad. My baby is getting so big. My kids are growing up and they don't need me anymore. Waaaahhhhhh!

Oh well. I made pork chops last night and I breaded and fried them instead of baking them. They were the best pork chops I've ever made. Juicy and flavorful and good. No real reason for sharing this, they were just damned good pork chops.

Oh yeah, take the quiz in the post below this and let me know what Food Network chef you are. And no fair cheating so that you're not Sandra Lee. Be honest!

Could have been worse

I could have been Sandra Lee!


Which Food Network chef are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Cradle cap crap

Last night I was sitting next to Joseph on the couch and I reached over and ruffled his hair. I noticed that he had something kind of um, bumpy on his scalp. I looked closer and he had this bumpy, greyish yellowish stuff on his scalp in two spots each about the size (in area) of a fun sized candy bar. (Ok, it's a weird comparison, it's just the first thing I thought of.) I tried to kind of pick at one part and a it came off easily but a little tuft of hair came off with it too. EEEEEeeeeeek! I started imagining all these things that could be wrong with him and I was certain that any second he was going to start losing big handfuls of hair.

So I made a doctors appointment for him. Guess what it was. Cradle cap. Cradle fricken' cap. On a 5 year old. I mean, it's the older kids version of cradle cap and it has a real name but it still boils down to the fact that he has cradle cap. So we have a steriod solution to put on his head and his doctor reccomended a mild dandruff shampoo for him. This solution can apparently make his scalp a little raw so that should be fun.

Yippee.

In other news, I'm still working on my list of the top 5 evils in America. I have 1-4 figured out but I'm still debating #5. I'll have to give it more thought.

Links

This one is funny but don't click it if you are easily offended by Lego depictions of the Bible -

funny

My favorite story on the above link is this one-

favorite

Pictures

I went and had Elle's pictures done today. She cooed and giggled in the car all the way there. She cooed and giggled as I got her dressed in her fancy pink dress. She cooed and giggled as I carried her in to get her picture taken. I laid her down on the pillow and she started to scream. Her face got red and her hands went right for her mouth, a sure sign that she's hungry. I took her into the dressing room and tried to feed her but she didn't seem to want to eat, just to scream. She had a bunch of toots and then seemed to feel a little better. I took her back into the other room to try the pictures again. I laid her down and she fell asleep.

Ok, I can deal with that. I thought we could get some cute ones of her in just her diaper as she slept. I took of her fancy pink dress and suddenly she was wide awake. She refused to smile though. She kind of smirked a few times but mostly she just laid there looking serious. I decided to try putting her dress back on but that made her decide she needed to eat again. Ay-yi-yi.

Edited to add- Joseph just got off the bus crying because he was so upset. For some reason he and another little boy were talking about dying and the little boy told him everybody dies someday. Joseph's not down with that I guess. I asked him why they were talking about dying and he said he said he asked them about it because he didn't know if they knew about it. He's very worried about the people he knows getting old and dying. The whole concept of death is very troubling to him. He's too sensitive for his own good sometimes.

I always forget

I keep meaning to update the blog but then I just forget. I'm working on a long post about the top 5 evils in America though so that will be up soon. Seriously, it's awesome.

I'm taking Elle in for a second attempt at getting her pictures done tomorow. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'm sure she'll be fine. Now that he cold is gone she's back to her regular happy self.

The past few night Elle has been sleeping for 4 hour stretches. Hooray! Who knew that 4 hours of uninterupted sleep could feel like such a luxury?

I'm thinking about looking into getting Joseph a PCA (personal care assistant) to come for a few hours every week. They could help him with stuff like dressing (he still needs a lot of help for a kid his age), hygiene (again, he needs a lot of help and reminders) and teaching him other personal care stuff. The goal would be to help him learn to do the stuff on his own better, not to just have someone else come in and do it for him. They could also do things like teach him socail skills and different ways to interact with people. If we did something like take him to the library then the PCA could come along and kind of help guide him when he needed it. We're so lucky that all of Joseph's medical expenses are taken care of, it gives us a lot of options that we might not be able to afford otherwise.

I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming! I haven't done any shopping yet. None. Zero. Zip. I need to get on the ball but I have a feeling I'm going to end up giving everyone I know things like my old tupperware because I've just run out of time. On an unrelated note, does anyone have some old used tupperware they could give me? I need it for ....... a ....... project. Yeah, that's it. A project.

God Rescue Merry Gentlemen

Joseph is way into singing lately. He likes a lot of Bob Dylan songs that I have on cds so when we're in the car I put them on and he just sings his little heart out. It's the cutest darn thing you every did hear. His favorite thing to sing is Christmas carols though. I have one on a cd by the Bare Naked Ladies that he likes a lot. It's an upbeat version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Only, guess how Joseph sings it "God Rescue Merry Gentlemen". It kills me.

Yesterday we were all in the car and we drove past these two guys in black jackets and ties riding bikes. I said "Mormons! I didn't know there were Mormons in Minnesota!". Joseph said "What's a Mormon?" I tried to explain that it was a religion. He said "What's religion?" Geez. How do you explain that to a very bright 5 year old? I don't think I did a very good job.

Elle has a cold that just won't go away. She's mostly ok now but she's making some out of this world boogers. I go to wipe one away and it it just keeps coming and coming and coming. I don't remember Joseph ever having foot long boogers. My little girl must just be an exceptional booger maker. Lucky her. Lucky me because I'm always the one that ends up with them on the shoulders of my shirts.

Merry fricken' Christmas

My mom and I took the kids to get their pictures taken yesterday. I wanted to get some of Elle alone and then some of them together to use as our Christmas card this year. What a fiasco! Elle wasn't feeling well and cried and fussed almost the entire time. Almost without fail every time we got her to have a content look on her face Joseph would start acting like a little monkey. The photographer would put him in a pose and we would get both of them looking at the camera and then just as the picture was about to be taken Joseph would throw his hands in the air and shout "Goose berries!" or something equally weird. Augh!

Elle was so crabby that we weren't even able to have her solo pictures done. I'll have to go back another time for that. We did manage to get a couple of cute shots of them together though. I told Jesse I should have just gotten a picture of both of them crying and written "Merry Fricken' Christmas" on it.

I suppose I should take Elle out of her swing and try to nurse her. Since she's not feeling well all she wants to do is sit in her swing and snooze. If I take her out to nurse her or change or anything she gets mad and screams at me. She gets all red and she waves her little fists around like she's trying to take a swing at me. It's actually pretty cute but she's already so miserable that I don't like making it worse. She does need to nurse though so she'll have to come out sooner or later. As talented as I am I haven't figured out how to nurse her while she's swinging yet. Give me time.

Odds and ends

Let's see, what's new?

When Elle was born they did a hearing screening on her and she failed in her left ear. We went in Thursday to have it redone and she passed in both ears this time. She didn't like the test at all though. The way it worked is they stuck this probe in her ear and it made an echo and then the echo showed up on a chart on a computer screen. I was wondering how they were going to to that. I pictured her sitting in a little booth raising her hand whenever she heard a tone.

Elle had a doctors appointment a couple days ago. She weighs 12 pounds now. She's in the 95th % for her age. Funny, since Joseph was probably in the 5th % when he was her age. Anyway, the doctor says she looks good and she's obviously "thriving". I love the code words that they come up with for "fat" when it comes to babies. From now on when I look in the mirror and start to feel bad I'm just going to tell myself I'm "thriving".

I had a meeting with Joseph's teacher today. She said they really enjoy having him in the class and that he's a "delight". She also said (much to my joy) that he seems to be making friends. She said he gets along well with everyone in the class. She said he seeks out kids who are more verbal but that he plays just as well with other kids too. She said there is one little boy in the class who has some developmental delays and Joseph has taken a real interest in him. Not suprising since Paula (Joseph's teacher last year) always said he took on the caretaker role in class. Today as we were out driving Joseph started to talk about the little boy that his teacher had told me about. He said "[Little boy who's name I forgot] is a good listener now. At first he wasn't but now he is. He was just a little fussy before." I thought it was interesting that he was interested in how the other kids in his class were behaving.

He's such a nut though. The other day he brought home a piece of paper that said "Joseph" and "Jaiden" on it. When I asked him what it was he told me "My freind Ashely helpled me make that. It means we're married now." Today he was talking about Jaiden again and I asked him why he wanted to marry he. He told me it was because he was in love with her. Silly question I guess. I asked if she loved him too and he said "Well, she smiled at me one time ..... I think that means she's in love with me."

Oh yeah, one more Elle story before I forget. I was nursing her and she made a couple of small tooting noises. When she was done eating I noticed a little damp spot on her outfit. I assumed it was just a little bit of pee that leaked out so I went to change her. As soon as I started to unbutton her one-piece outfit I could see that there was something horribly wrong. She had poop from her armpits to her knees. I don't know how it happened but she was just coated in the stuff. I seriously just wanted to button her outfit back up and pretend I hadn't seen anything. Ah, kids are fun.